You can tear a thing apart and tape it back together, and it will still be torn and whole. There is no other way. In her fiercely beautiful memoir, Jeannine Ouellette recollects fragments of her life and arranges them elliptically to witness each piece as torn and whole, as something more than itself. Caught between the dramatic landscapes of Lake Superior and Casper Mountain, between her stepfather’s groping and her mother’s erratic behavior, Ouellette lives for the day she can become a mother herself and create her own sheltering family. But she cannot know how the visceral reality of both birth and babies will pull her back into the body she long ago abandoned, revealing new layers of pain and desire, and forcing her to choose between her idealistic vision of perfect marriage and motherhood, and the birthright of her own awakening flesh, unruly and alive. The Part That Burns is a story about the tenacity of family roots, the formidable undertow of trauma, and the rebellious and persistent yearning of human beings for love from each other. Jeannine Ouellette is also the author of the children’s book Mama Moon and several educational titles. She has worked as a writer and editor for regional and national magazines and has served as the nonfiction editor for Orison Books and reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, narrative journalism, and poetry have appeared in numerous publications. She is the recipient of a Curt Johnson Prose Award for Fiction, Proximity Personal Essay Award, Masters Review…

Guest blog by Carolyn Porter, author of Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate (Skyhorse, 2017). In the five months “Marcel’s Letters” has lived in the world, I have been honored to join ten book clubs, and I look forward to the half-dozen more who have arranged events for the coming months. The visits have been delightful. If I sound surprised, that’s because as an introvert, I had not expected multi-hour visits with strangers could be so enjoyable. But, it has been delightful to engage readers in in-depth conversations about the book. That, and the perks: French wine, delicious macarons, lots of laughter, goose-bump-inducing personal stories. And the pool party. Jill asked me to share some of these book club experiences along with observations about what has made these events enjoyable and successful: Arranging the Book Club If you don’t have a personal connection to an author, but love their work, visit their website. Do they proffer an easy way to contact them? If so, inquire if they would be willing to chat with your group via phone or Skype. If they are local, ask if they would be willing to join your group in person. There’s no harm in asking! I have heard some authors follow a “rule of ten.” That is, the book club needs to have ten or more people (or the group needs to buy ten or more books). I don’t enforce that rule, though I understand the sentiment. If you do…

Jeannine Ouellette’s new memoir, The Part That Burns, has garnered critical acclaim since its release on February 1. Joyce Carol Oates called it “simply beautiful. Precisely imagined, poetically structured, compelling, and vivid.” Last week Ouellette joined Jo Ann Beard, Katherine Angel, Dantiel Moniz and Michele Filgate for a panel discussion on “Desire” for the Red Ink Series, sponsored by Books Are Magic bookstore in Brooklyn NY. Kirkus gave The Part That Burns a starred review and describes it as “A textured remembrance of a traumatic childhood that also offers affecting moments of beauty.” Ouellette continues her virtual book tour this week with an event sponsored by independent bookstore Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis. Heidi Seaborn will moderate a discussion with Jeannine Ouellette, Lilly Dancyger (Negative Spaces) and Gina Frangello (Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason). This virtual event will be live on Facebook and YouTube. The following week, Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor hosts a conversation with Ouellette and author Jennifer Pastiloff on Zoom a week from Thursday on March 25 at 8 pm ET. Jen is the founder of the online magazine, The Manifest-Station, and author of the On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard. Register to get the Zoom link here. Stay tuned for dates and locations to be announced for April events with Jeannine Ouellette and Ethel Rohan who has a new story collection coming out (In the Event of Contact) and with novelist Keisha Bush…